


Detrimental Yourself

by wickedrum



Category: Van Helsing (TV 2016)
Genre: Friendship only, Gen, Missing Scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22740607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedrum/pseuds/wickedrum
Summary: Set: Between ep 5 and 6 of Season 2. Doc tries to haul the near death vampire Axel to where they think Vanessa might be.
Relationships: Doc | Sarah Carol/Axel Miller
Kudos: 5





	1. The Survival of Species

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: I barely own my knickers. When I am writing, it's foremost for my own pleasure.
> 
> Pairings: Axel/Doc friendship. 
> 
> Genre: whump.

“I can’t. I mean I can’t go any further,” Axel insisted as Doc was trying to haul him up once more for the millionth time. 

“If you’re right about that red door, we’re not far, help me out here,” the woman let herself be dragged down onto the cold ground too for a moment as she needed the rest. It had been a long time since she'd eaten anything as well. Despite starving, Axel still felt heavy and she was dizzy, with the colour red swirling in her mind forming shapes like petals and flames and inscriptions like a nightmare, no doubt resulting from a lifestyle that revolved around blood despite her not being a vampire anymore, but she fought against the heaviness in her head keeping her down and blearily checked on the soldier’s chest. It was getting light so she could see well enough that he was still breathing beside her. 

“Shit, just leave me..” She heard his whisper weakly as she leaned close. With his eyes closed, Axel already seemed lifeless till his lips moved. “End of discussion.” It was hard to hear it.

“You know I can’t do that, right?”

“Oh, of course. Your soul still needs saving?” He shook as a particularly powerful stomach cramp made him curl up. 

Doc watched helplessly as he bit his lips raw, squeezing his eyes shut. She was a doctor, yet she couldn’t do anything to help him. Her hand reached out to comfort him, smoothing his messy hair, his back, then her rubbing palm moved to his side and reached to his stomach to draw soothing circles on it. He grabbed her other hand, entangling his fingers into hers and he pulled her a little closer, “hey, you’re forgiven, alright?” 

“No. That’s not true so don’t ask me again to kill you.” The woman tried to make her voice sound as steadfast as it was possible. It was hard to deceive Axel, but perhaps in his weakness he wouldn’t argue.

Axel only had strength for a growl. It was his hunted eyes that asked the same, his hand tightening on hers, “please. Hey, it’s your doing, then it’s your responsibility! Do the right thing for once!”

She wanted to stick her fingers into her ears, block out every sense, not to listen to his moans, the rustling of his trashing on the ground covered with leaves and sticks, but she couldn't quite find it in herself to do it. She just watched him, eyes brimming with tears, “we’ll get you fixed. I want you to live..” The medical examiner whispered. Her guts were twisting too and she knew it wasn’t the hunger making them. She had been given hope to right her mistake and she did not want to let it go, she couldn’t. Living with herself was hard enough as it was.

“You can’t save yourself. Got to hell. It hurts too much,” Axel started to writhe again. Volatile in his suffering, he had no patience left for rational thought. All that mattered was soothing the pain, in whatever way possible. Right now, that seemed to be curling up into a ball with his arms around his belly.

The woman knew he wouldn’t be able to go any further as he had said, not this time. Not knowing what else to do, she moved behind him and lay down next to him, wrapping her arms around him, enveloping his stomach with her arms from the back, hoping to give him some sort of comfort, “it will pass like nothing. It has passed before and you were able to continue. We’ll just wait a little.”

“It never passed for one moment, you know that? I just had more strength left.” In different circumstances he would have laughed at her naivety. “I’m a Marine, for fuck’s sake. That’s how we roll,” he choked out.

She could literally feel his intestines trying to turn themselves round under her palms. He seized up and his body tried to hack something out his stomach that wasn’t there, an effort that left him keening in anguish and the scientist wished with all her might that Axel would pass out. Bringing her hopes up, he seemed to relax a little and was now only trembling badly till he was hit by another wave of vicious cramps. Doc held on tightly, riding it out with him, feeling his pain as tears rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably. If it went on any longer, she would really have to end him and that would end her. “No, not now Axel, Axel, Axel..” She started chanting his name like a prayer. Time got a little blurry in her distress till she felt something change within him and he became completely silent even though the cramps went on. Doc sat up to assess him, trembling like a leaf herself with all the emotion and exhaustion. Axel was clearly only half conscious, thank god. “What if I go and find Vanessa? It’s...If she’s really here, she’s close. I will bring her to you, I promise.” There was determination in her voice though, moderated only by her heartfelt and sound regret, “I will be back,” Doc let go and backed away hesitantly, keeping an eye on him for as long as she could. Axel didn’t look in too much pain, but only because he was beyond feeling it for the moment. She felt so guilty leaving him. What if he wasn’t alive when she returned? What if he wasn’t there when she returned? What if he died alone again after she felt him? What if he couldn’t take it anymore and killed himself? But going off on her own was the only move she had left unexplored.

Tbc


	2. Disciplinary Actions

Chapter 2: Disciplinary Actions

Axel did not want to be alive, never mind conscious. Though was he really conscious? Has he blanked out for some time? His soldier senses told him yes as some part of him still seemed to have monitored the sun’s position in the sky on instinct. The pain in some ways became a blessing because he could not think of anything else, get annoyed with anything else, for example with the fact that Doc has left him to his own devices once more. At some level, he knew he was moaning, keening, jerking and trashing, all of his self control lost now that he didn’t have somebody there to pretend for, but he was past caring. Though that smell. It wasn’t fresh blood, it was disgusting, dead, but it still made him salivate uncontrollably, twist his insides in acute need to get to it. The light felt like too much and pierced his eyes as he pulled himself on the ground, crawling towards the smell. Maybe there was a dead person somewhere close. That would save him if he only had as much strength as to reach it.

His senses were off and he wasn’t able to move much, and the smell still seemed closer. It didn’t make sense, and the rustling either. Was there a dead body there or not. Then the explanation came, in the form of a hysterical Doc hauling him to his back and trying to get a reaction out of him. Axel instinctively grabbed for the item in her hand, ir was where the smell came from. It turned out to be a blood bag that she helped him lift to his mouth hurriedly, “there’s a military base nearby and they had supplies.” 

As straightforward and commanding it should have been to snatch that container out her hands and devour it, it proved to be difficult for the vampire to be able to relax his muscles enough to move the right ways so Doc ended up pulling him into her lap and needing to force his teeth apart enough for the tube to fit through into his mouth. Almost crying from worry, a whimper escaped her in exasperation, working against the hope that filled her all the way back after she’d acquired the blood bags. “I’ve got you now,” she assured him, somewhat encouraged herself that he’d started to suck, however weakly and that his body probably won’t shut down now. Having made sure that he could hold his food between his teeth, the ex-vampire grabbed hold of his hand in a prayerful manner as if she would have believed in the possibility of some sort of higher power’s intervention for the sake of a vampire. He was still drinking weakly, far from the ferocious manner vampires usually would have, his eyes remaining closed the whole time. Axel didn’t even go crazed when the plastic was drained, he simply let it drop. 

“I have more,” Doc encouraged, “you can have more whenever you want.”

He shook his head, “I want to rest a bit.”

“Alright, alright.” The woman shifted her legs into a more comfortable position for the both of them, “we aren’t in quite such a hurry now, though Vanessa won’t stay around here forever.”

“Just give me a moment,” the vampire was testing his senses, his capabilities, his strength to keep his eyes open for starters. He was still starved, still not sure if he could keep himself in check if a human came around, still needing the Saviour to turn him back. Blood bags weren’t the best, he needed the real thing, but for now, he did feel more alive, yet nauseous at the thought of downing more of the cold liquid that had probably been lying around untouched and expired for years. 

“Come on, how are you feeling?” Doc watched him still obviously worried.

“I'm fine,” he assured her and seeing her dubious look he added, “we should get going as you said.”

She frowned, “hey, didn’t you want to rest?” She couldn't help feeling overprotective after what she had to witness going on with him over the last few days. It was hard to say what was best, it was unknown territory, along with him being able to resist ripping her apart. 

“We did. Piss off, I'm okay to go now,” he reassured her with a squeeze of her arm and an attempt at sitting up, from which he discovered that the movement had indeed made him a bit lightheaded and his stomach more queasy.

“I've got you, I’ll help,” he found himself steadied by her comforting arms again. 

“God damn it. Maybe a little bit more rest,” Axel conceded to the needs of his body. 

Doc settled into a more comfortable position, “so. Tell me the truth. You really didn’t? Attack humans, kill humans? Because how is that even possible. I don’t understand.”

The vampire grunted dismissively, “maybe it’s not possible.”

“So you did feed?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Things were a little hazy at the beginning, but I do know I didn’t always feel this excruciatingly hungry.”

“Hazy,” Doc frowned, “probably for the best. I know how it is, the brain doesn’t process things how it normally would. I forgot most of what happened when I was a vampire, apart from that irresistible instinct to feed. Some of me thinks I really just want to blank it out, not to know.”

“Same difference. I’m fine with that, for both of us,” Axel struggled to stand, but pulled her up with him all the same.

“Are you okay? What is it?” The woman noted how he was suddenly all alert.

“I might be hallucinating out of need but I think I can smell Vanessa. We should check it out.”

End of Missing Scenes.


End file.
